


Adventure of a Lifetime

by VolkswagenPanda



Category: Tschick | Why We Took the Car - Wolfgang Herrndorf
Genre: CAR TRIP, Driving, Epilogue, Fluff, Funny, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Post-Canon, World Travel, car, driving trip
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29186475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VolkswagenPanda/pseuds/VolkswagenPanda
Summary: Tschick and Maik already had their adventure...right? Wrong. Five years later they meet again when Tschick miraculously finds the Lada in the junkyard once more. Deciding they have nothing to lose, they travel together once more, this time across the whole world. How? You'll have to read it yourself to see...YOU CAN READ THIS EVEN IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK!!! (Because I know hardly anyone has!)
Relationships: Tschick/Maik
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2





	Adventure of a Lifetime

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The1WhoReads](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The1WhoReads/gifts).



> For those of you who haven't actually read the book, here's a short summary you might want. Although you can get by without, I thought someone might appreciate it. *SPOILERS*  
> Maik and Tschick went on an adventure 5 years before the start of this story when they were 14, in the original book Why We Took The Car. Tschick stole a car (the model is called a Lada Niva, and they refer to the car as the Lada) and convinced Maik to go with him on a road trip. So they do. They meet all these crazy people, and they advance from acquaintances to car-stealing buddies to best friends (to, in my opinion, possibly more…).   
> At the end of the story, they get in trouble when everyone finds out they stole a car, never mind that it was abandoned in a junkyard and hardly ran. Tschick goes to jail and Maik’s cheating dad leaves him and his mom. The story ends without the readers knowing if Maik and Tschick ever meet each other again, hence this story! With some romance thrown in because of the undeniable chemistry between the two.  
> Well, not undeniable. The author denied it.  
> That should be enough!

Chapter one—We Meet Again

Maik shifted in his seat. “Where are we going?”

“Does it matter?”, came the expected retort.

“Yeah, kind of!”

“Think about something else,” said Tschick, making a left turn as he did.

“Now that you said so, I can’t! I’m too curious! I haven’t seen you in five years, and  _ this  _ is how you treat me?!” 

“Stop complaining, we’ll be there soon anyway.”

“Tschick, why did I even get in this car with you? Oh right. I DIDN’T.” Maik kicked the dashboard in front of him to emphasize his point. While glaring at his old friend, Tschick made an abrupt turn that resulted in Maik’s face squished against the window.

“Oh, shut up. It’s better than spending quality time with your empty house and you know it.”

“I don’t know about that. My empty house can be pretty interesting,” said Maik indignantly.

Tschick scoffed. “In what way, exactly?”

“Eyes on the road!”

Tschick lazily looked back at the empty road. “You’re trying to change the subject.”

“No, I’m actually concerned that you were going to run into something if you don’t stop  _ looking _ at me!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, it’s just very difficult to resist sometimes.” There was silence until Maik saw Tschick trying to resist the smile creeping up on his face. A beat of silence, then they both cracked up.

“God, you are terrible at flirting.”

“The look on your face was worth it!”

“Wait, whaddaya mean the lo—”

“Well, it looks like we’re here!”

“Where?”

“You don’t recognize this place? You haven’t ever seen pictures?”

“I mean, I…” Maik got out of the car, taking in his surroundings. “I guess I have, yeah. But how are we…?”

“In New York City when only ten minutes ago we were in the Middle of Nowhere, Germany? Long story. I’ll tell you the whole thing over hot dogs; this place has some great ones. Come on!”

Maik was still frozen.

“But how…”

“I’ll explain on the way if I must, but I’m starving, so can you just—” Tschick grabbed Maik by the upper arm and pulled him away from the car.

“Huh? Yeah, sorry. Um, let’s go.” He still sounded pretty disoriented, but that would soon be healed when Tschick employed the power of hot dogs.

~~

“So in short, the Lada showed up in the junkyard again—"

“Even though it had been destroyed years ago—"

“Yes, even then—and you got in and tried to drive it, but when you did, you ended up somewhere random?”

“It was some desert somewhere or something. And then I freaked out—”

“And found the controls on the dash. Gotcha. So now you can control where it goes, and you’ve known this for—”

“About three weeks now.”

“Damn, Tschick, why didn’t you tell me sooner?!”

“I guess I kind of thought it was a dream.”  _ And I thought you wouldn’t want to go on another adventure with me all these years later, _ he added silently.

“We could have been traveling the world for three weeks now!” Maik threw his hands into the air. “Well, can’t make up for lost time, I suppose. Where have you already been?”

Tschick jumped a little, startled out of his thoughts. “What?”

“I asked where you’ve already been so we don’t go to the same place twice!”

“Oh. Um, I think Paris, London, uh…I’ve been here before obviously. I went to Hawaii, that was fun. Not many places yet, some 

other things have been bogging me down.”  _ That’s one way to put it. _

“Ok, so not any of those. That still leaves lots of cool places to go…”

“You can think about it on the way back to the car.”

Maik gave a distracted ‘mhm’ and did just that.

~~

When they got back, Maik settled into the passenger seat. “I missed this car,” he sighed, putting his hands behind his head.

“Yeah.”  _ I missed you, too. _

“So!” Maik turned his head with a raised eyebrow and wicked grin. “Just how important are those things you said were bogging you down?” 

~~

“…why do people get excited about Bali again?”

“I honestly don’t know. It was basically like any other island,” Maik said, rubbing some sand off his arm.

“Where to next?”

“Wait a second—how long has it been?”

“Um…yeah, that’s going to be difficult to answer. We’ve passed through too many time zones to count. Definitely a while, though. We should probably get back.”

Tschick set the dashboard dials to home, landing in the junkyard. He pulled out with minor difficulty and drove to Maik’s house. There would have been protests (‘I can just walk’, ‘it’s not that far’, ‘you’re probably tired of driving’), but it was raining, and even Maik wouldn’t go quite that far for someone else’s convenience.

But by the time they got to Maik’s house, rain had turned to sleet, which turned to hail, and Maik yelled over the noise for Tschick to just pull into his garage instead. Once they were under the roof, they both let out a sigh of relief.

“Why do you have a two car garage when it’s just you?”

“This was my parents’ house. When my dad left, my mom opted to move in with her sister rather than live here alone, but she didn’t want to sell it, so I took over the house. It’s only a little more expensive than my apartment in Berlin was. All location, you know?”

“Huh.”

”But that’s beside the point. Look, you and I both know these storms don’t go away quickly. I have a few spare bedrooms, do you want to stay over? You could go home in the morning or—”

“Sure, Maik.”

“Oh! Okay, cool! I just wouldn’t want your magic car to get broken, after all.”

“You mean  _ our _ magic car.”

“Yeah…” Maik said, his smile growing. “Yeah. Our magic car.”

~~

“This house is so big, don’t you find it a little weird?”

“Now that I’m in it alone, yes.”

“But not when you were a kid?”

Maik looked thoughtful as he replied, “I mean, I’ve never really thought about it. It was just my house.”

“You’re an only child, though…”

“I don’t know. Speaking of living arrangements, where have you been these past few years?”

“I suppose I should start from the beginning.”

“Here, we can sit down for you to tell your epic tale,” Maik said, gesturing towards the couch.

Tschick sat down and took a deep breath. “Right after our trial, as you know, I was put in jail.”

“That’s going to make me angry until the end of time, I swear—”

“At this point you’re angrier than I am,” Tschick shrugged. “It was only for six months, and after that I went to my brother’s house. I never did go back to school,” he mused.

“So you just quit school at fourteen then?” Maik’s voice didn’t hold the judgement many others’ would. He simply sounded interested.

“Well, not quite. Like I said, I was living with my older brother, who shared a house with his girlfriend. She happened to be really good at maths and gave me a few lessons here and there. I still had all my old textbooks, which I would work through sometimes for refreshers. And when my brother was off work he might help me with some of the things I struggled with. Oddly enough, once I left school, I became much more invested in my schoolwork.”

“And after that?”

“Funny story. I stole another car.”

Maik looked incredulous. “You wh—”

“I know, I know. I should’ve known better. And I was eighteen at that point, so I could have been put in jail for real this time. But some stupid rich person left their keys in the ignition, and there was nobody around, and I was desperate…”

“So you stole their car?!”

“Yup. I don’t feel good about it looking back, but at the same time…I don’t know. It felt right, almost like the person deserved it.”

“Okay then, go on.”

“I slept in that car for a while, maybe three months or so before I miraculously ended up back here when I was looking for a job. You know that gas station on the edge of town, the one with the sign that leans way into the street?”

“Yeah.”

“I work there now.”

“Really? How have I not seen you around then?”

“From what I can tell, it’s because you hardly ever leave your house…”

“Hey, I resent that!”

“Anyway, the owners of the gas station offered to let me stay in their basement in exchange for a cut of my salary and some extra chores here and there. It was a good deal, and better than sleeping in my stolen car, so I accepted.”

“Wait, about the car and everything, did you change the plates and stuff?”

“Obviously. I was a much more experienced criminal at eighteen than when we drove around years ago.”

“Right, right.” Maik rolled his eyes.

“So, yeah. That’s where I’ve been the past five years.”

“Much more interesting than what I’ve done…hey, you want some coffee?”

“Sure. You can tell me your uninteresting story over it.”

~~

“From what I’ve gathered, your dream career was a bust so you decided the city wasn’t right for you and you’ve been a recluse ever since?”

“Not a nice way to put it, Tschick! But yes.”

Tschick shrugged. “Like you said earlier, no making up for lost time. Now’s as good a moment as ever to do something fun again, right?” Tschick crossed his fingers behind his back and tried to look nonchalant.

“Right. I say we travel the world and finish the trip that was interrupted five years ago! It’s about time!”

“All right then! We’ve already done some quick sightseeing today, but we can really start seeing the world tomorrow…”

So there they sat, exchanging rapid-fire conversation about what they were going to do and see, both with the biggest smiles they had had in far too long. Their coffee grew cold as they spoke late into the night, reminiscing about the past, catching up on the present, and planning for the future.


End file.
